


Ashes and Roses

by fayzalmoonbeam



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Angst, Clameron - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 09:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3564008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayzalmoonbeam/pseuds/fayzalmoonbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Lord Freud said some awful things about people with disabilities at a fringe meeting of the Conservative Party conference in October 2014. Ed Miliband called David Cameron out on it in Prime Minister’s Question time that week. It was such an angry exchange that my narrative senses went off and this fic was written. All conjecture, no offence intended.</p><p>Warnings: Mentions the death of a child, and some sexual references. Oh and there's swearing. A lot of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes and Roses

Sometimes he wishes he could tell Miliband to fuck right off. Bugger the television cameras, the gallery and the microphones. How dare he use Lord Freud as a stick to beat him with? How fucking dare he? He knows it’s painfully unfair to compare, but when Gordon lost his baby, no-one uttered a word; no-one tried to score points. But one mention of disability and Ivan is back again; centre stage. _What would you say if it was your son?_

David knows it’s futile to personalise it; Ed wasn’t intending personal references when he brought up Freud’s shitty, thoughtless point of view on disability and the minimum wage this lunchtime. To be truthful, even though it was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise, David shouldn’t have expected anything less. Ed’s a good politician; he knows how to play the game, but David can’t help himself. David’s blue through and through, and the fact that he has relied on the National Health Service, the fact that disability has profoundly affected his own life in the form of his late, beloved son doesn’t sit easily with many on his side, and the other. The others. Fucking Carswell can swing, as well, for all he cares.

He hears the door open, and hurriedly chucks the crafty cigarette he’s been illicitly enjoying out of the open window.

‘Are you alright?’

David supresses the irritation he feels at the enquirer and forces himself to focus on the enquiry.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

A pause.

‘I’m sorry. It came out of the blue today, didn’t it? Freud, I mean.’

‘Why didn’t anyone know?’ David’s voice is a lot icier, a lot calmer than he feels inside. He’s surprised at himself.

‘You’re asking me? It was a fringe meeting at your fucking conference.’

‘Oh calm down.’ David loves, and simultaneously hates, the fire in Nick’s voice. A fire he once found himself dangerously attracted to. How things change.

Nick crosses the room. Clocks the packet of fags on the windowsill. ‘George’ll do his nut if he finds out you’re smoking again. Not to mention Sam.’

‘I don’t care. Not tonight.’ _If the fucking Prime Minister can’t enjoy a smoke every so often, then who the hell can?_

‘Got one going spare?’

David suppresses another flash of irritation. Nick’s had more fags off him than an Eton House Master over the past four years. He hates that entitled, smarmy, holier than thou I don’t smoke but I’ll happily bum them off you attitude that his Deputy Prime Minister can’t quite get away from. He forgets the countless cigarettes they’d actually shared in the early days. How that generous mouth of Nick’s wrapped as well around his cock as it did around a communal Silk Cut. Sometimes they’d even shared it three ways, when George needed the release from the deficit and Danny was unavailable.

‘Help yourself,’ David mutters. After all, they do have to work together. For another few months at least.

Nick puts the cigarette between his lips, flashes the lighter, then draws deeply.

‘I saw Ed in the bar earlier,’ he says on the exhale.

‘Toasting his victory was he?’ David snaps. ‘He might as well. There won’t be any more of them.’

‘He didn’t want to do it, you know.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me. He wouldn’t have the balls if Carswell hadn’t just fucked off.’

‘No, it’s not that.’

David’s fist clenches. He desperately wants another cigarette, but he’s buggered if he’ll show weakness in front of Nick.

‘What was it, then?’ He says, jaw as tight as his knuckles.

‘He knew how much it would hurt you.’

David shrugs. ‘We’ll recover. Freud’s not exactly in the public eye.’

‘Not the government. You.’

‘Oh, come off it!’ David tries to laugh it off, but the laugh dies in his throat.

‘He’s a decent man. He didn’t want to bring Freud up this way, but that fucking spin doctor of his advised it. Politically, it was too good an opportunity to miss. Personally, he didn’t want to do it.’

‘And that’s why he’ll never be standing this side of the desk,’ David says. ‘He doesn’t have the fucking balls.’ He knows, although he doesn’t want to dwell on it, that he’d have had no such qualms, had the situation been reversed.

‘Decent men don’t stand that side of the desk,’ Nick says quietly, taking another drag of the stolen cigarette.

David starts. Relations have deteriorated between himself and the Deputy PM over the past six months, but somehow they’d stopped short of personal insults.

‘Am I sensing a reprise of your Kingmaker role?’ David’s voice is dripping with sarcasm. ‘You’ve got another seven months to get through before you can start brokering deals again.’

‘Not at all,’ Nick said. ‘I think we both know that’s not going to happen.’

‘Not if you get annihilated in the polls,’ David says, not without satisfaction.

‘Doesn’t matter either way,’ Nick replies. ‘I think we’re tainted by association these days.’

‘Oh don’t start.’ David turns back to look out of the window, suddenly weary of Nick, of arguing, of everything.

There’s a long silence between them that stretches into territory neither want to traverse right now.

‘Was that everything?’ David says eventually, a little too quickly.

‘I think so,’ Nick replies, but the look in his eyes speaks differently. ‘Unless…’

‘What?’ David’s irritation is barely concealed.

‘Do you want to talk?’

‘About what?’

Nick waits, considers his words carefully. He knows he’s taking a risk, and doesn’t quite know how to phrase it. Eventually, drawing deeply on the cigarette for comfort, he speaks. ‘For fuck’s sake, David, why can’t you just admit he rattled you? You’ve never forgiven yourself for Ivan, never allowed yourself to accept it was just a horrible, horrible tragedy, but that he had a wonderful life before he died. And your guilt and your grief colour everything you say and do about disability and the health service. Ed knows it, and that’s why he didn’t want to ask that question today. He might be poles apart politically, but personally he knows how much being a father means, and he knew it would hurt.’

‘You have no right to talk to me about my son!’ David rounds on Nick, and for a moment he really does see red, and Nick realises, too late, that he’s said it all wrong. ‘How dare you accuse me of being unprofessional?’ He begins to pace the office, trying to shake off the rage that is threatening to engulf him.

‘David, please. That’s not what I said. But you need to let it go. You did everything you could. And every time you show the Opposition you’re rattled, they score a point.’

‘I don’t give a fuck.’ David ups his pace. ‘Staying angry is what will keep me in office. You know that, I know that, Ed fucking well knows that.’

Nick puts the half smoked cigarette carefully down on the saucer with the House of Commons logo on it, and, without another word, reaches out a long fingered hand and catches David’s arm, mid stride.

David freezes. He looks at Nick, really looks at him, for the first time in what seems like months. He gets a sudden, potent sense memory of what it feels like to physically possess him. The nights they’d spent fucking instead of making policy. The anger, fuelled by passion that had kept them together. And how that contact had stopped him from losing the plot over Ivan on so many occasions when he couldn’t share his eviscerating grief with Sam.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’ David says bleakly.

Nick shakes his head wearily. ‘It was bound to. You and I agreed too much, when everyone around us didn’t.’ He picks up what remains of his cigarette and takes a last drag.

David rejoins Nick by the window. The orange glow of the street lights catches the raindrops that are falling on the horizontal. Not pausing to think, he raises a hand and takes the cigarette from where it rests between Nick’s parted lips. The drag he takes is a gesture of ownership, but also reconciliation. ‘One last time?’ He stubs out the rest of the fag on the windowsill outside. The pigeons need the hit as much as he does. Several of them have developed quite the nicotine habit lately, courtesy of the PM’s office.

Nick raises an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’

David gives a hollow laugh. ‘I need you. Like we were. Fuck, I’d get George in here too if I could but he’s pissed off home for the night.’

‘I thought we’d agreed…’ Nick can’t quite meet Dave’s gaze.

‘Fuck it!’ David snaps. ‘You’re right. You’re the only one who got it when…’ he swallowed. ‘When Ivan…’ but he can’t say it, because he still can’t quite believe the pain, all these years later.

Nick leans forward, closing the gap between them. ‘I know,’ he says softly, but the way his lips met David’s is anything but. They haven’t touched in so long, have kept themselves so wilfully separate, that both are taken aback by the force of their desire.

Within moments, shirts are off, trousers are dropped and mouths are exploring much more intimate places. Nick’s mouth remembers far more exciting uses than drawing on cigarettes, and David feels his anger turning into raw desire.

‘Christ, Nick,’ David pants as Nick’s tongue strokes in blissful circles around the head of his cock. ‘Why the hell did we stop doing this?’ He thrusts his hips forward to embed himself deeper in the other man’s mouth.

Nick can’t talk with his mouth full, but after nearly five years of personal and political coalition, there’s really nothing left to say. This is all that remains. And soon, even this will be a distant, rose coloured memory.


End file.
